Dedicated to Amanda Wilding

I want to write a letter to the world that never wrote to me.
I do it best, through poetry, mimicking
Sweaty rhymes and motion sickness,
A poet standing tall, speaking wisdom,
Maybe not knowing the world,
As you may see it,
Severed synapses keeps me constant thinking.

I wonder what I should write about,
To tell you where I stand.
To tell you where I think I belong….
I belong in the chorus of a song.
I once belonged in wards, sheltering my storm.
I once wandered highway roads,
To find my solace sinking,
Rising with the sun, because I couldn’t bare sleeping

Collapsing in a park, with two strangers standing by me
Sleeping for what was a century, but only really seconds.
Wandering the Willows, to find my shelter,
With Conner Oberst singing songs to me and wearing
My fathers sweater.
He was sick at the time, it reminded me of him.

I never knew I would persuade him to pick up writing.
I kept tune to my dream, as far as I could see it.
Once I wanted to be a millionaire, and never stopped dreaming.
I thought my silence was golden, but I was only bronze,
Couldn’t stop talking,
Didn’t know who I was.

Met a friend who has been with me, through poetry and music
Lost a couple friends to death and overdose, one high school friend
I miss the most, she told me she was sick once after school,
That she had a disease that would take her, it took her at 22.

I saw the greatest minds of my generation, stolen from me,
And I saw it under my eyes, and gravity outweighed me.
But I keep survival on my mental, like a rash of poison ivy
And I understand I will die one day, and I hope you never cry for me.

But while I am here, I write with passion, for people who passed, and people
Who believe, that there is really something,
something I don’t understand
But I never get sick of fighting, realizing that I write with fire, ocean and lightening
And where I am…I never really see it.
I’m a poet, and with speech I have my freedom.
I didn’t mean to dedicate this to an angels passing.
But Amanda wrote and was dedicated to making things happen with passion
Even in high school, she was my oddball companion,
And we worked on the cover, it was three astronauts, me, her and Nick V,
On our own Oddball planet.

Because back then I was sad, and had only poetry to prove it,
My family called it quits, and moved to separate addresses,
I kept on with poetry, music the motion and movement
I was diagnosed and all was lost, I never thought I would do it,
I went through sadness, and saw scars develop,
On my friends arms, and others had developed bruises,

Because I could write, and some cannot, and that’s why anger exists,
That’s why slit wrists and broken fists exist, and that is what I realize
That writing poetry was my sanctuary and has kept me alive
And now I write and I write still listening to music.

An ocean of love, I try and create, and keep my dreams breathing
Cause you never know when its your time to go,
And when you can’t see the ocean…then there in lies the end.
When the tidal wave comes, and believe me it does,
In every dream, I have always had.

Remember me for poetry, friends…its all I am.

 

Jason Wright is the founder and Editor of Oddball Magazine. His “Jagged Thoughts” column appears weekly.